


Taraxacum officinale

by murkle



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Family Issues, Father-Daughter Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Sisters, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murkle/pseuds/murkle
Summary: The year I turned 10, on the first day of spring, we slipped into the woods like always. I shot a rabbit, a clean kill. My father's quiet pride chased the lingering winter cold out of my bones. When we stepped out of the last shadows of the trees and into the meadow, it was a sea of green and yellow. Dandelions.We picked as many as we could, and brought them back to the house. Prim put some in a jar on the table, and my mother made the rest into salad.Spring was here, and we would be okay.
Kudos: 2





	Taraxacum officinale

Every year spring came, and on that first day my father would smile at me, the kind of smile that you can't help but reciprocate. He'd throw his arm over my shoulder and we'd walk through the streets. I'd close my eyes and tilt my face up to the sun, soak up the warmth as he led me along. I never had to worry about keeping my eyes open with him. He kept me safe, always. 

We'd slip through the fence and across the meadow, back into the woods. There were few places my father truly belonged, but the forest was one of them. The second he stepped into the comforting shade of the trees, this light would come shining out of him. He lit up like that around my mother, too. When he held Prim in his lap and made her laugh. When he gently corrected the way I held my bow. 

I knew, deep down in the darkest places of my being, that this was where my father was supposed to be, and it was where I was supposed to be, too. I used to dream about the four of us running away into the woods, living in a little house tucked under the trees. My father and I venturing out into the brush and bringing back fresh meat, Prim eating berries that were still warm and sweet from the sun, watching the sun rise and set over the mountains. 

The year I turned 10, on the first day of spring, we slipped into the woods like always. I shot a rabbit, a clean kill. My father's quiet pride chased the lingering winter cold out of my bones. When we stepped out of the last shadows of the trees and into the meadow, it was a sea of green and yellow. Dandelions. 

We picked as many as we could, and brought them back to the house. Prim put some in a jar on the table, and my mother made the rest into salad. 

That spring, I followed my father into the woods countless times, trying to imitate his silent footsteps and the graceful way he moved. It didn't make sense to me yet how my father, the coal miner, and my father, the hunter were the same person. My father the coal miner was up before dawn. I'd watch with bleary eyes as he moved through our small house, tired even after a full night of sleep. He'd come home with his shoulders hunched and his head hung. Everything about him, from his boots to his helmet to the lines of his body was solid and hard and worn down. 

My father the hunter was light on his feet. He was never tired. Sometimes, he'd pause and look up at the leaves above us and the light that filtered through and just breathe it in. Once, on a holiday, he brought my mother and Prim with us and we spent the day by a little pond. Prim and I came back with armfuls of apples to find our parents dancing by the water. 

My father sung a melody in his rough voice, my mother crooning along whenever she wasn't laughing. Prim and I stood just inside the tree line, watching as he spun and dipped her and then pulled her close. That was the first time I truly understood they loved each other. Before we left, my father plucked a dandelion from the grass and presented it to her. My mother tucked it behind her ear and kissed his cheek. 

The summer my father taught me to swim, Prim sat on the bank of the pond and blew wishes from dandelions. She must have scattered millions of seeds that day. The little fuzzy bits floated across the surface of the pond as my father showed me how to hold my breath. 

My last year with my father was hard. I was beginning to truly understand the world. One day, the hazy autumn light filtering through the trees and throwing dappled shadows onto our faces, my father looked at me. "Katniss," he said. "I don't ever want you to be afraid of the world, but I think maybe you should be." He pushed his hands through his hair and sighed. I was eleven. I knew about the reaping coming up soon, and that my name would be in that glass bowl in less than a year. In the woods sometimes, my father would say things about the Capitol. Things I knew never to repeat. Things I knew he would be killed for. "Promise me that you won't give up hope that the world can change for the better."

"I don't think the world wants to change." I replied. He laughed, short and soft.

"I worry you are too much like I am, sometimes." He said, but the smile in his eyes made me think it wasn't a bad thing. 

That was also the first year he took me to the Hob. I learned that my father opened up a little around people. Years of smiles and worry had etched themselves into the wrinkles on his face, and sometimes he seemed sad for a man who wasn't yet forty. In the market, the same as in the woods, he seemed a little happier, a little more at ease. He had friends there.

Sometimes he would trade a rabbit for a little less than it was worth, but he told me that sometimes you had to give back a little. He almost always got very good trades. I seemed to have inherited his talent for bartering with none of his people skills. 

The last reaping that I wasn't a part of, I stood in front of my father, his hands tight on my shoulders and Prim's small fingers tucked into mine. My mother's face was drawn tight. I recognized the look in both of my parents' eyes. It was the same look that an animal got when I had missed the shot, and they lay screaming and terrified on the ground, waiting for me to come and finish the job as their blood pooled beneath them.

A girl I recognized from the Seam walked across the stage in a dress that didn't fit quite right. She was small, pretty in a harsh way that was different from my mother's soft beauty. Every line of her body was hard and sharp, and completely at odds with the tears streaming down her face. 

A dozen feet in front of us, her mother dropped to her knees, shaking. My father's grip tightened. 

Back home, my family ate warm stew and fresh bread. After the mandatory program that showed all of the tributes from every district, I sat outside with Prim in the dying light, and wove dandelions into a chain. "She looked a little like you." Prim said. 

I glanced at her, my full stomach suddenly turning, fingers still twisting the stems together.

"She had the same hair and eyes." I thought about the tears on the girl's face, and knew with a cold certainty that I would never let Prim see me cry like that. Prim continued, "A lot like you, actually." 

"No," I said, fingers finishing the chain. "She's not like me, okay?" I twisted the chain into a crown and tied the ends together. "I'm not ever going to leave. I promise." I placed the circle of dandelions on Prim's head, the flowers as yellow as her hair. 

A few weeks later, I came home from school to a man in front of our house. He was dressed well, in a warm coat and solid leather boots that were nothing at all like my father's practical hunting boots. I walked down the street, Prim beside me, and watched as my mother came outside. The man put a hand on her shoulder as he spoke to her, and I watched as my mother shattered into a million pieces on the street. 

I stopped dead in my tracks. Every muscle in my body was tight, screaming at me to run. I had never before felt less like a predator. Prim looked up at me, and I could hear her calling my name, but it was like I was underwater. I knew, somehow, that the second I got home, everything would change. 

Prim was getting upset. I thought about the section of fencing a quarter of a mile away that was broken. I could go. Disappear into the woods. Prim was shaking my arm. I blinked, and it was like I had come awake. I could not run. Whatever was happening, my mother needed me. My father would need me, too. I shushed Prim, and kept walking. I was not weak, and I would not run. 

When I got to my mother, still lying in a thousand million pieces on the sidewalk, I wished I had run. When my mother stood and walked inside the house, she left all the pieces of herself on the sidewalk. 

There isn't even a body for a funeral. I don't feel a thing. I wonder what would happen if I dropped a brick on my foot. Would I even feel the bones break? I look at my mother, the empty shell of her body in the kitchen chair, and know that if I were to slap her she wouldn't even react. It's been a week. I take some money from the jar in the cupboard and go in to town. 

We don't have much. My parents have a little saved up, and then there's the money we got after my father died. It seems such a small price for his life. I try to make what little we have last. It's clear my mother isn't up for the job. 

Every day, I walk with Prim to school. When we get home, I force my mother to eat a little. In March, the money runs out. I stand in our tiny house in my dirty clothes and scream. I scream so loud that Prim hides under the blanket on our bed. I scream at the jar for being empty. I scream at myself for being hungry. I scream at the hunting jacket hanging by the door, because its owner has abandoned us. I scream at my mother, because she left us all on her own. 

I scream until there's no breath left in my body, and then I realize that I'm crying. Tears are running down my cheeks like rivers. I crumple to the floor. It's cold beneath my shins. My body is shaking. I am cold and hungry and so afraid I don't know if I have the energy to be angry anymore. A tiny part of me, the only part of me that hasn't been forced to grow up yet, wishes my father could come back.

What would he come back to? I sold his clothes a month and a half ago. A watch my mother got him as a wedding gift, too. Two weeks ago I sold his boots for meat. There's barely anything of his left, including us. 

I start to wail. My grief crashes over me and I'm drowning in it. An eternity later, my wails have turned to sobs and then to awful hitching breaths that aren't giving me any air. Prim emerges from the blanket, where I assume she has been watching me, and joins me on the floor. She holds my hand in hers. 

I glance at my mother. She hasn't moved. She isn't even looking at me. Prim has been crying. My sweet sister, my baby sister. I force myself to take a deep breath. My chest shakes as I try to inhale, but I force the air in and back out. I do it again. Prim needs me, and I can't help her if I let myself fall apart. 

Rain is falling on the roof of our house, pinging off the tin. The cold that follows is already beginning to seep in, and Prim is shaking a little. We haven't had any food for days. I need to feed her. If there is one person in this family who deserves survival, it's Prim. Not my shell of a mother, not me, Prim. 

I pull myself to my feet and shuffle through the chest at the foot of our bed. In the very bottom is a small paper package filled with Prim's baby clothes. They're old and worn, but somebody might want them. I put on my father's jacket. It's been months, but I can still just smell him on it- the smell of coal dust, sunshine, and loam. I tuck the baby clothes into the jacket and tell Prim to take care of mom. 

The next day, we run to the meadow after school and pick more dandelions than we can carry. We take them home and eat them. 

The day after that, I dress in a shirt and trousers instead of the skirt I normally wear to school. I pull on my hunting boots that are a little too small now, and eat what's left of the dandelion. Beside me, Prim twists her hair into two twin plaits. 

"Do you want me to do yours?" She asks. I let her. 

Her fingers comb through my hair, taming the dark waves. She braids it into one tight plait down my back, and I swallow. Pigtails are for little girls, and we both know I'm not a child anymore. I put on my father's jacket and walk the quarter of a mile to the break in the fence. I slip under and trot across the meadow and into the woods. 

I find a bow and a full quiver hidden in a tree. I string the bow and pluck at it experimentally to make sure it's tight enough. It takes me hours to find something to hunt, and I miss the first shots I take, but eventually I get a squirrel, and then another. 

I walk back home with a bag of game, and more life coiling in my belly than I've felt in months. The woods have woken me up, and I know that I can't run from my life anymore. I can't keep blaming my mother and feeling that quiet, desolate rage for my father. I can't run from my responsibilities. Like my father, I know that I will fight to survive. 

As I cross the meadow, I pick another dandelion for Prim. 


End file.
